VIVA - Definition

VIVA is a German, private music television channel located in Cologne, Germany. It was founded in 1993 by Dieter Gorny to compete with MTV, the market leader at the time. Being the first music channel to broadcast in German, VIVA was able to secure a close lead in the ratings for the target audience. Today, the company is divided into the "Viva und Viva Plus Fernsehen GmbH", "Brainpool TV GmbH", and "Viva Media Enterprises". Currently (summer 2004), the main shareholder is the media company Viacom (75.8%), who also owns the main competitor to VIVA, MTV, creating a virtual monopoly in German music television. Since 1995, VIVA has a pop music award ceremony with the annual Comet prizes. On the 21st March 1995, the channel VIVA ZWEI ("VIVA Two") was created and on the 1st January 2002, it was replaced by VIVA PLUS. In 2003, VIVA had broken the unwritten rule that television should be have a neutral viewpoint after it openly expressed an anti-Iraq War view. Later that year, VIVA got bad press, after it was discovered that VIVA had given Universal Music, an unfair advantage in the placement of their music videos. Since 26th November 2004 the German media speculates about the impending closure of VIVA. It will affect the company's 290 employees. A decision is expected in the near future.

See Also

TMF – VIVA's Dutch counterpart owned fully by MTV Networks

Sources

• [1] (http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VIVA&oldid=3784927) German Wikipedia article (December 2004)

Links

• website of the Viva Media AG (http://www.vivamediaag.com/mediaag/en/)
• website of the TV channel Viva (http://www.viva.tv/) (german)
• the takeover offer of Viacom for the shareholders of Viva-Media (http://www.mtv-viva.com/english/press_release_offer.htm)
• report in "Die Welt" about the planned massive reduction of staff in VIVA (http://www.welt.de/data/2004/11/26/365655.html) (german)